Academic Publication

Author Profile

Dr. Jamuna Bini was born in 20th October 1984 at Ziro, Arunachal Pradesh. She has written Criticism, Travelogues, Short Stories and Poetries. Her notable published works are: Do Rangpurush: Mohan Rakesh Aur Girish Karnad (Criticism), Jab Adivasi Gata Hai (Poetry Collection), Uiimok (Nyishi Folktale Collection), and Ayachit Aur Anya Kahaniyan (Short Story Collection). Her poems are included in the M. A. Curriculum of Allahabad University, Mizoram University. Her works have been translated into many Indian languages including Santali, Assamese, Malayalam, Marathi, Telugu, Gujrati and in Foreign language, Turkish also. She has got many recognition across the country and abroad for her literary works. Currently she teaches at Hindi Department, Rajiv Gandhi University, Rono Hills, Doimukh (Arunachal Pradesh). Santosh Kumar Sonker Born in Prayagraj, Uttar Pradesh in 1983, Dr. Santosh Kumar Sonker has edited two books (Dalit Assertion and its Space in Literature and Situating Tribals of India : Culture, Language and Self) and translated two collections of poems (Lessons from Forest and Mountain, and Motyrarin) from Hindi to English. He is an academician, critic, writer, actor and director. He has written five plays and various poems in Hindi. When an Adivasi Sings is the third book of translation from Hindi to English. He has been bestowed with “Shri Jailal Smriti Sahitya Sadhak Samman” award in 2021. Currently, he is an Assistant Professor, Department of English and Foreign Languages, Indira Gandhi National Tribal University, Amarkantak, Madhya Pradesh.

About The Book

When an Adivasi Sings is a flow of river assimilating various experiences of Adivasi life. Feelings of an Adivasi woman for her culture, tradition and Nature as well as her reactions against acculturation, urbanization, capitalism and male chauvinism; a strong voice against the main-stream shrewd politics about Adivasi languages, culture and identity; helplessness of Adivasis caught amidst the conflict between the People of the Forest and government machineries and multidimensional harassment of Adivasi women misguided and abused by the outsiders in the name of jobs in the cities are prominent issues the poems deal with. Registering a strong presence of Adivasi sensibility of North-East in the field of literature, it depicts the poet’s worry over the deteriorating interest of the Adivasi youths in their cultural roots and highlights her effort to search for a path through which Adivasi cultural traditions can run along with the modern ways of life. Each poem expresses an untold aspects of Adivasi identity absent in the literary field of the nation. The book is completely drenched in the cultural ethos of the Adivasis of Arunachal Pradesh. It contains local cultural idioms used in colloquial conversation and names of deities which bear ample significance in their life but have been ignored in the contemporary scenario. Embedded in Adivasiyat which has been defined by the Adivasi thinkers as the ways to look at Adivasi life, poems appear to be local in nature but universal in appeal.

Table of Contents

Preface Foreword Poet’s Note Translator’s Note 1. Those Days of Leisure 2. An Interesting Story 3. When an Adivasi Sings 4. In a Waiting for Return 5. A Hope to Survive 6. A Fairy Tale 7. Relationship with Soil 8. An Arunachali Youth 9. The So-called 10. Memory of the Village 11. Two Banks of a River 12. Scene 13. Bright Future 14. Leisure 15. Mountain 16. Delicate String 17. Mother 18. Modern Education 19. Mithun 20. They and We 21. Arunachal 22. Being a Woman 23. Moaning of the Moon 24. Colour of Love 25. Laughter Kept on Echoing 26. Fell in Love with You 27. Come Back 28. Celebration of Democracy 29. Grey Sky 30. Fear 31. Time Machine 32. Drops of Rain 33. A Letter has Come 34. T. V. Channels 35. That Girl Sitting on the Stairs 36. Bloody Waves 37. Overcoat of Gogol